Architecture of the IBM System/370

Abstract

This paper discusses the design considerations for the architectural extensions that distinguish System/370 from System/360. It comments on some experiences with the original objectives for System/360 and on the efforts to achieve them, and it describes the reasons and objectives for extending the architecture. It covers virtual storage, program control, data-manipulation instructions, timing facilities, multiprocessing, debugging and monitoring, error handling, and input/output operations. A final section tabulates some of the important parameters of the various IBM machines which implement the architecture. © 1978, ACM. All rights reserved.